ROMULUS, Mich. – A Nigerian man who said he was an agent for al-Qaida tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane Friday as it was preparing to land in Detroit, but travelers who smelled smoke and heard what sounded like firecrackers rushed to subdue him, the passengers and federal officials said.

Flight 253 with 278 passengers and 11 crew members aboard was about 20 minutes from the airport when passengers heard popping noises, witnesses said. At least one person climbed over others and jumped on the man. Shortly afterward, the suspect was taken to the front of the plane with his pants cut off and his legs burned, a passenger said. Law enforcement officials said the burns indicated the explosive was strapped to his legs.

One U.S. intelligence official said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid. It failed when the passenger tried to detonate it.

"It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase," said Peter Smith, a traveler from the Netherlands. "First there was a pop, and then (there) was smoke."

Smith said a passenger sitting opposite the man climbed over people, went across the aisle and tried to restrain the man. Syed Jafri, another passenger, said he saw a glow and smelled smoke. Then, he said, "a young man behind me jumped on him."

"Next thing you know, there was a lot of panic," said Jafri. Smith said the heroic passenger appeared to have been burned.

The White House said it believed it was an attempted act of terrorism and stricter security measures were quickly imposed on airline travel. It did not specify what those were.

The incident was reminiscent of Richard Reid, who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes, but was subdued by other passengers. Reid is serving a life sentence.

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect in Friday's attempted attack as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. One law enforcement official said the man claimed to have been instructed by al-Qaida to detonate the plane over U.S. soil, but other law enforcement officials cautioned that such claims could not be verified immediately, and said the man may have been acting independently — inspired but not specifically trained or ordered by terror groups.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

Another law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the case, said Mutallab's name had surfaced earlier on at least one U.S. intelligence database, but not to the extent that he was placed on a watch list or a no-fly list.

Mutallab was being questioned Friday evening. An intelligence official said the Nigerian passenger was being held and treated in an Ann Arbor, Mich., hospital. One passenger was taken to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, hospital spokeswoman Tracy Justice said. She referred all inquiries to the FBI.

The trauma burn center at the hospital said it did not have Abdul Mutallab in its unit.

Flight 253 began in Nigeria and went through Amsterdam en route to Detroit, said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the ranking GOP member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

A spokeswoman for police at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam declined comment about the case or about security procedures at the airport for Flight 253. Schiphol airport, one of Europe's busiest with a heavy load of transit passengers from Africa and Asia to North America, strictly enforces European security regulations including only allowing small amounts of liquid in hand luggage that must be placed inside clear plastic bags.

A spokesman for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Akin Olunkunle, said all passengers and their luggage are screened before boarding international flights. He also said the airport in Lagos cleared a U.S. Transportation Security Administration audit in November.

"We had a pass mark," spokesman Akin Olukunle said. "We actually are up to standards in all senses."

There was nothing out of the ordinary about the flight until it was on final approach to Detroit, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory. That is when the pilot declared an emergency, she said. The flight landed at 12:01 p.m. EST, she said.

Delta Air Lines Inc., which bought Northwest last year, said that "upon approach to Detroit, a passenger caused a disturbance." It said the passenger was subdued immediately and the crew asked that law enforcement officials meet the flight.

"The passenger was taken into custody and questioned by law enforcement authorities," the airline said.

According to the airline, eight flight attendants and three pilots were on board.

Smith said while he was leaving the plane, he looked at where the man had been sitting and saw a pillow that seemed to have been burned. Melinda Dennis, who was seated in the front row of the plane, said the man involved was brought to the front row and seated near her. She said his legs appeared to be badly burned and his pants were cut off. She said he was taken off the plane handcuffed to a stretcher.

President Barack Obama was notified of the incident and discussed it with security officials, the White House said. It said he is monitoring the situation and receiving regular updates from his vacation spot in Hawaii.

Federal officials said there would be heightened security for both domestic and international flights at airports across the country, but the intensified levels would likely be "layered," differing from location to location depending on alerts, security concerns and other factors.

Passengers can expect to see heightened screening, more bomb-sniffing dog and officer units and behavioral-detection specialists at some airports, but there will also be unspecified less visible precautions as well, officials said.

The FBI and the Homeland Security Department issued an intelligence note on Nov. 20 about the threat picture for the holiday season, which was obtained by The Associated Press. At the time, officials said they had no specific information about attack plans by al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.

In 2003, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden purportedly marked Nigeria for liberation in a recording posted on the Internet, calling on Muslims in the oil-rich country to rise up against one of the "regimes who are slaves of America." But links to al-Qaida remained rare, though security forces claimed to break up such a linked terror cell in November 2007.

Delta, which is days away from obtaining a single operating certificate from the FAA to fully integrate itself and Northwest, has been hosting military personnel who have to travel over the holidays in a lounge at the Detroit airport.

Something iffy with that incident, I mean they let him on without a passport even though he was on a terror watch list.Claims he was trained in Yemen by al-qaeda and there are many more there just like him. Yemen will get bombed now because of this fictional story.

Something iffy with that incident, I mean they let him on without a passport even though he was on a terror watch list.Claims he was trained in Yemen by al-qaeda and there are many more there just like him. Yemen will get bombed now because of this fictional story.

I heard Obama fabricated this story in order to access Yemen's Qat supply.

Seriously though, if you're on a terror watch list, you shouldn't be able to fly anywhere.

Something iffy with that incident, I mean they let him on without a passport even though he was on a terror watch list.Claims he was trained in Yemen by al-qaeda and there are many more there just like him. Yemen will get bombed now because of this fictional story.

I heard Obama fabricated this story in order to access Yemen's Qat supply.

Seriously though, if you're on a terror watch list, you shouldn't be able to fly anywhere.

He was seen at the airport prior to boarding with a smartly dressed man who accompanied him into a side room and that same man was taken into custody with him by the FBI. Then the FBI said they only took the 'bomber' into custody - so who was the smartly dressed man? Very fishy indeed and I think it's just another set-up to impose more control and take away more of our rights.I might sound crazy for saying that but the 'official' story is a joke.

If I was on that plane, I probably would have beat that person to death with any blunt object I could get my hands on.

QUOTE (marney1 @ Dec 28 2009, 01:12 PM)

He was seen at the airport prior to boarding with a smartly dressed man who accompanied him into a side room and that same man was taken into custody with him by the FBI. Then the FBI said they only took the 'bomber' into custody - so who was the smartly dressed man? Very fishy indeed and I think it's just another set-up to impose more control and take away more of our rights.I might sound crazy for saying that but the 'official' story is a joke.

If I was on that plane, I probably would have beat that person to death with any blunt object I could get my hands on.

QUOTE (marney1 @ Dec 28 2009, 01:12 PM)

He was seen at the airport prior to boarding with a smartly dressed man who accompanied him into a side room and that same man was taken into custody with him by the FBI. Then the FBI said they only took the 'bomber' into custody - so who was the smartly dressed man? Very fishy indeed and I think it's just another set-up to impose more control and take away more of our rights.I might sound crazy for saying that but the 'official' story is a joke.

According to that story the 'smart dressed man' didn't board the plane with Mutallab and stayed behind in Amsterdam.

After all, if you'll notice the person (Haskell) who claims to have seen the 'smart dressed man' saw "another man being taken into custody," not the 'smart dressed man,' "another man." Although it is possible that he didn't actually see someone be arrested, but only thought he did. After all at that stage the FBI wouldn't have known about any other accomplices as the plane had only recently landed.

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If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.

An obvious patsy if ever there was one. They keep trying to scare us by telling us how sophisticated al-CIAda is and then comes one of their operatives with the intention of blowing a plane out the sky yet doesn't have the brains to get himself a passport.Also the detonator was 'faulty' which brings me to conclude that this whole episode wasn't to bring down the plane but to cause maximum panic which could be used to enforce even more spying on law abiding citizens.Stasi 21st century style.

what a fucking joke... billions of dollars later and we can still board a plane with a bomb... i could of thought of a billion things we could of spent that money on... security will always be a joke, there's always ways pass security...

i agree with marney (which only seems to happen with politics)... it's probably more of a scare tactic... the government probably personally let this man on the plane themselves... pretending to be security, pretending to do a background check, pretending to be a government...

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QUOTE (Massacre @ Mar 15 2011, 01:24 AM)

Oh, good one. The "you're on the internet so you must have no life" insult isn't moronic or unoriginal at all. You must, without a doubt, be a very important member of society, not at all a waste of the already barely valuable gift of life.

As is the case for everyone who takes issue with people who make them sad on the internet, you are one of two kinds of people:

You are exactly what you claim I am, and that is a lonely, pathetic basement dweller. You life is spent eating eight pounds of junk food per day, masturbating to anything you find online that's even remotely feminine, and wishing you had good looks and social skills. You continue to live with your mother until she dies of a combination of lung cancer and liver failure brought on by the chain-smoking and heavy drinking she used to cope with what a failure you are. Your mother mercifully dead and free of the living embodiment of failure she regretfully thrust from her loins, the bills start to pile up and you, unemployed and unable to pay these bills (of course), lose the house and everything in it. Somehow even more of a failure than you already were, you wander from place to place eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in your own filth until you finally die of AIDS, which you contracted from a diseased whore you scrounged up enough money to pay for, so you could finally lose your virginity while at the same time pretending that your mother was back in your life.

Or:

You are the type who was an athlete in high school, who was genetically doomed to be an idiot but managed to finish school and even get a college scholarship because you were so good at a worthless children's game. You went off to college with a suitcase full of polo shirts and condoms, the polo shirts, because you're a douche, and the condoms to prevent you from impregnating the dim-witted young college girls whom you could never touch without the aid of Rohypnol, a drug you refer to as "roofies" because you can neither spell or pronounce Rohypnol. You scrape by with borderline D's for the next four years, and leave the campus to go out into the real world where your realize you're not intelligent or talented enough to do anything of value with your life. Misery and minimum wage ensues for thirty years, then you blow your brains out, and your corpse, alone and forgotten, is not discovered until the smell of rotting flesh seeps under your door and your bodily fluids finally soak through the floor of your studio apartment and into the room below you. Your body is cremated, the ashes scraped into a garbage bin because there was no one in your life who valued you enough to pay for a casket, funeral, or burial plot.

You're undoubtedly one of the two, otherwise you would have better things to do than complain about the theme of a forum that doesn't care about anything you have to say.

Our governments aren't interested in our freedom they're only interested in having total control over us. In times of panic the public are quick to agree with all these new 'anti-terror' laws without stopping to think what freedoms they're giving up.Our 'elected' officials are laughing at us because we fall for it hook line and sinker every time. Where are the independent media these days to look past the smoke and mirrors? All corporate media goes along with whatever they're told to so that's what empty headed people believe.They're very quick to forget first hand accounts of 'terror' incidents from the people who were there but maintain the governments 'findings' which read like a Tom Clancy novel. Stop believing the politicians and mainstream media and start thinking for yourself, ask yourself the obvious questions which the media never seem to ask.

Yall need to get a life and quit thinking that the world is out to get you. It was a situation that happened the way it happened. He was obviously disturbed and wanted to blow up a plane but wasn't successful, simple as that. Now he will spend the rest of his life in prison where he will spend 23hrs a day with two big guys named Bruno and Tyrone. The Govt isn't out to take your freedoms and screw you over and scare you and make you cower to their all mighty will.........unless of course you live in an arab state.

Yall need to get a life and quit thinking that the world is out to get you. It was a situation that happened the way it happened. He was obviously disturbed and wanted to blow up a plane but wasn't successful, simple as that. Now he will spend the rest of his life in prison where he will spend 23hrs a day with two big guys named Bruno and Tyrone. The Govt isn't out to take your freedoms and screw you over and scare you and make you cower to their all mighty will.........unless of course you live in an arab state.

LOOK EVERYONE! ^ A perfect example of a perfect citizen - as the western powers like you to think.

isn't "new major" a military man? yea, they're trained to say stuff like that... the government is never at fault according to a military man... my brother was in the military (navy) and he talked just like this until he got out...

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QUOTE (Massacre @ Mar 15 2011, 01:24 AM)

Oh, good one. The "you're on the internet so you must have no life" insult isn't moronic or unoriginal at all. You must, without a doubt, be a very important member of society, not at all a waste of the already barely valuable gift of life.

As is the case for everyone who takes issue with people who make them sad on the internet, you are one of two kinds of people:

You are exactly what you claim I am, and that is a lonely, pathetic basement dweller. You life is spent eating eight pounds of junk food per day, masturbating to anything you find online that's even remotely feminine, and wishing you had good looks and social skills. You continue to live with your mother until she dies of a combination of lung cancer and liver failure brought on by the chain-smoking and heavy drinking she used to cope with what a failure you are. Your mother mercifully dead and free of the living embodiment of failure she regretfully thrust from her loins, the bills start to pile up and you, unemployed and unable to pay these bills (of course), lose the house and everything in it. Somehow even more of a failure than you already were, you wander from place to place eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in your own filth until you finally die of AIDS, which you contracted from a diseased whore you scrounged up enough money to pay for, so you could finally lose your virginity while at the same time pretending that your mother was back in your life.

Or:

You are the type who was an athlete in high school, who was genetically doomed to be an idiot but managed to finish school and even get a college scholarship because you were so good at a worthless children's game. You went off to college with a suitcase full of polo shirts and condoms, the polo shirts, because you're a douche, and the condoms to prevent you from impregnating the dim-witted young college girls whom you could never touch without the aid of Rohypnol, a drug you refer to as "roofies" because you can neither spell or pronounce Rohypnol. You scrape by with borderline D's for the next four years, and leave the campus to go out into the real world where your realize you're not intelligent or talented enough to do anything of value with your life. Misery and minimum wage ensues for thirty years, then you blow your brains out, and your corpse, alone and forgotten, is not discovered until the smell of rotting flesh seeps under your door and your bodily fluids finally soak through the floor of your studio apartment and into the room below you. Your body is cremated, the ashes scraped into a garbage bin because there was no one in your life who valued you enough to pay for a casket, funeral, or burial plot.

You're undoubtedly one of the two, otherwise you would have better things to do than complain about the theme of a forum that doesn't care about anything you have to say.